Automatic call director (ACD) technology is a well known technology that: i) accepts incoming calls from calling clients; ii) queues calling clients on-hold for connection to a service representative; and iii) when a service representative is available, connects the client from the queue to the available service representative.
In advanced ACD systems service representatives may be organized in sub-groups and the ACD may maintain separate queues of calling clients for each sub-group. When a service representative within a sub-group is available, the ACD connects the client from the queue (for such sub-group) to the available service representative.
As an example, service representatives may be organized in sub-groups based on a skill set. A skill set may be based on the representatives ability to handle client issues such as billing issues on existing accounts, customer services issues on existing accounts, and opening of new accounts.
Typically menu choices enable a calling client to identify the issue for which the client requires service and the client is then queued for a resource capable of handling the identified issue. As such, it is expected that clients who identify the purpose of their call as a “billing issue” will be queued for, and connected to, a service representative with the ability to handle billing issues. Similarly, it is expected that: i) clients who identify the purpose of their call as a “customer service issue” will be queued for, and connected to, a service representative with the ability to handle customer service issues; and ii) clients who identify the purpose of their call as a “open a new account” will be queued for, and connected to, a service representative with the ability to open a new account.
Utilizing such a system makes it quite possible for a calling client to first be connected to a service representative that can not handle all or part of the calling clients issue(s).
For example, a client calling for a billing issue may improperly be connected to a service representative who only handles customer service issues. Such improper connection may be caused by the calling client selecting improper menu choices within the ACD menu.
As another example, a customer calling for a combination of a billing issue and a customer service issue may first be connected to a service representative capable of handling only the billing issue portion of the combination.
When a client is connected to a service representative with the wrong skill set, the matter is typically handled by the service representative transferring the call to the proper resource group which effectively queues the client for the proper resource.
The same technique is used for a calling client that has multiple issues. After first connecting to a first service representative for handling of a first issue, the first service representative needs to transfer the client to a second customer service representative for handling of a second issue.
A problem with this technique is that the amount of time a client waits in each queue can be quite lengthy, particularly during times at which many clients are calling the call center. Having to wait in queue multiple times can be exasperating.
In an effort to reduce customer exacerbation caused by having to maintain a connection while on-hold in queue, secondary queue systems have been developed. A typical secondary queue system obtains a telephone number at which the calling client can be reached when a service representative is available. The client disconnects, and then, at the proper time, a call back system establishes a connection to the client and couples the client to an available representative without waiting on-hold in queue. One exemplary system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,563,921 to Williams et al. which is commonly assigned with the present application.
While such a system may make the experience of waiting for multiple service representative slightly less exacerbating, the client still must be queued multiple times.
Therefore, what is needed is an accessory virtual queuing system and method for interacting with a secondary queue that enables a queue control source, such as a system operated by a service representative or other resource, to obtain queue data and control the queue data in a manner that enables a service representative or other resource to initiate connection to a differing resource without suffering the disadvantages of doing so utilizing present technology.